08 Measured Response
by Thescarredman
Summary: IO, stung by the girls' escape from the mall, decides to take off the kid gloves. Colby is forced to play a double game with his old friend Lynch and his ruthless employer, Ivana Baiul.
1. Problems, Problems

**Sorry for the long posting delay. I've acquired a fresh respect for people who write for a living and have to meet deadlines. Those of you who read the first chapter of 'Conference' can safely skip Chapter 1, since they're nearly the same.**

Boulder, Colorado  
Central Headquarters, International Operations  
March 2006

Ivana had called an unusual Saturday morning conference for ten AM. Not that morning meetings, even on Saturdays, were unusual; IO was a seven-day, twenty-four-hour operation, after all. But _all _the Shop's heavy hitters had been called on very short notice. Usually a meeting with this much senior staff took a week to put together; a lot of schedules had been hastily rearranged, Colby was sure.

The conference wasn't scheduled to start for another fifteen minutes, but he'd been summoned early; it didn't take a cop's instincts to guess why. The details of Friday's fiasco might have been suppressed and all the participants warned not to talk, but there was no way to hide the results; too many local men missing off the duty roster, and Medical looking like a MASH unit. The whole complex was shaken and buzzing with rumors. And it had all started with him ditching his surveillance detail.

When he'd returned to the mall from his clandestine meeting with Lynch, his instincts had warned him of trouble. He hadn't even gotten inside before two Security types he'd never seen before had appeared, steering him towards a black Suburban, and his heart had raced, sure he'd been caught. He'd been a second from taking them out and running when one of them had started to explain. _Of all the rotten luck. All the places I could have picked. Why didn't I lose them downtown, instead of in Lynch's backyard?_

Colby stepped through the paneled double doors, sweat trickling down his ribs, and surveyed the dark furnishings. The conference room was laid out in what he thought of as 'SPECTRE' décor: gleaming, cold, and ultramodern. He remembered the conference room at the old headquarters in Maclean, Virginia: wood paneling with photos on the walls, upholstered antique chairs, and a table made from honey-colored oak; it had looked like it belonged to a _very _successful family business, not an international crime syndicate. _Craven was every bit as ruthless as Ivana, but the man knew how to foster teamwork._

A long dark table, as shiny as black chrome, stretched away from him, filling the center of the space; each place at the table had a high backed leather swivel chair, a manila folder, a tumbler of water – and a laptop computer, tethered to the table like a bank pen. A row of plainer seats lined each of the long walls, and a billboard monitor filled the far wall opposite the door. In front of it, at the head of the table, Ivana was already seated, with a couple of her cronies standing in attendance. Her Security Adviser, Gerry Ruche, said, "Frank. Good to see you didn't get lost on the way here."

He had no use for Ruche; the man's sole talent seemed to be the ability to figure out what Ivana wanted to hear, and say it. No, that wasn't fair; he was shrewd, a keen observer, and had a habit of making good guesses in a business where you always had more information than you could use, but never had all you needed. But he'd never been on a team, never even been in the field; he had an office weenie's contempt for the men in the trenches. Ruche's smartass remark made Colby want to grab him by the lapels of his Saville Row suit.

Colby hadn't made it to the second slot in Operations by telling people like Ruche what he thought. Nonetheless, he couldn't let the man's comment slide. "_I_ was never lost, Ruche. Your boys just got lost following me. They need better training." He couldn't help adding, "As evidenced by the number of them in traction right now."

The man's face darkened; he would have said something, but Ivana interjected. "Frank, I didn't call you in here early to trade insults with Gerry. I know you've been making a game of losing your security detail. I've let it slide, because you _are _teaching them better fieldcraft – the smartest ones, anyway. But it has to stop _now_. By the end of this meeting, you'll understand why, and I'll expect you to start cooperating. Clear?"

"Yes, ma'am. Though I can't for the life of me understand how they lost me on a shopping trip in a mall … and what happened after."

"As I said, you'll understand before you leave this room; I expect _all_ of us to have a better understanding of what happened, _and_ a plan for dealing with it. The others will be here in a few minutes, Frank. Why don't you take a seat, and pick up one of the briefs. Perhaps a head start will give you a chance to trim some fat from the discussion." She was at her urbane best, he saw; the mask was firmly in place. But he wasn't fooled, and she knew he wasn't fooled; she knew he wasn't ditching his surveillance for fun, and she would find out the real reason. And if she didn't like what she learned, he was going to be _very_ sorry.

He took a seat about a third of the way down the long table, and picked up the brief that lay in front of him. He was surprised to see that it contained mostly photographs: Lynch's girls, and another he'd never seen. One photo was a blowup of the unknown: another petite like the Spaulding kid. Mid-twenties, short, light blonde hair, elfin features, beautiful blue eyes; almost other-worldly. He studied it for several minutes, and then put it down. "This isn't much of a brief. I presume we're going to find out who this is at the meeting?"

"Frank," she said heavily, "We'll be going over _everything _at this meeting, but that brief is all the printed material you'll be taking away. As little of it as we can manage will leave this room; it's that sort of situation."

Ruche took a seat at Ivana's right hand as the other conferees sidled in, nervous as mice in the kitchen. They all took note of his and Ivana's early presence, but no one spoke to him, and the seats next to him were the last to fill. _We're representatives of one of history's most powerful organizations, governments included, meeting to make life-or-death decisions, and they're acting like they're back in high school. If Lynch was running this show, or Miles Craven … But no. I wonder if she really got a leg up the company ladder by sleeping with Craven. It would explain why women who get into 'relationships' with senior IO staff always seem to have something wrong with their efficiency reports, and why no other female has ever made it past department head._

"All right, people," Ivana said, "Let's get started; we have a lot of ground to cover. I hope nobody's got a tee time this afternoon." A few chuckles at that, but since it was only ten in the morning, her point was made: this discussion was top priority for IO's most senior people. And it had all started with him ditching his surveillance detail.

"Mr. Santini is still seeing to training issues at Maclean, so Mr. Colby will be sitting in for the Director." _As if Santini could spend five minutes in a meeting with Ivana without igniting fireworks._ IO still maintained some offices in their old Virginia location, as well as the training facility for the Operations Directorate. Ivana had effectively ceded the Maclean facilities to Santini, and they saw each other as little as they could manage._ It's a good thing his loyalty to the Shop is beyond question._

The laptop in front of him lit up, and Ruche started his spiel. "First, some ground rules. This is an open discussion, and a brainstorming session; any idea has to be considered at this point. But if you have a question or something to say, join the queue by clicking the appropriate button on your sidebar display."

Colby clicked on the button, and saw his name and job title appear at the top of the queue.

"Yes, Mr. Colby? A question already?"

"Gerry, do we all see the same information?" He saw the man was clearly affronted by the use of his first name in a meeting. _Tough. If he can use mine while he's trying to slam me in front of the boss, he can put up with it from me while he's trying to lord it over his fellow bureaucrats. _"I thought the presentation might be tailored to individuals; the terminals have that capability." _Though I doubt you ever use it for anything but e-mail and Power Point._

Indulgently, Ruche said, "No, Frank, we all see the same thing on our displays, so we know what we're looking at."

_Good; now I know you can't get away with erasing someone's name from the queue, at least. _"Thanks. Sorry to interrupt."

"No problem. Okay, a little background. All of you have some knowledge of Project Genesis and its significance in our operations, but that knowledge has been compartmentalized to the point that it may make understanding of our present situation difficult."

Colby fumed inwardly at the man's self-serving explanation. _Translation: you've got so many overlapping and conflicting security restrictions on Project Genesis, who really knows what is anybody's guess._

"Genesis started as a Research project to develop people with special talents for covert assignments, and as a Research project it succeeded beyond all imagining." _An obvious tip of the hat to Ivana's former department._ "After ten trial generations, we moved from lab animals to human test subjects, and our troubles began. We needn't go into clinical details of the eleventh and twelfth trials-"

_Meaning, we needn't make anyone lose their breakfast..._

"-but the experimental regime uncovered a high incidence of mental instability in the test subjects. Such people were deemed unsuitable for work that required cool heads under stress. But Genesis treatments affect the subject's DNA; it was learned that our test subjects were passing the potential for extranormal talent on to their offspring. Around puberty, these juveniles began showing amazing abilities – without any distressing side effects. So we recruited as many as we could find, especially individuals whose abilities hadn't yet manifested."

_Harder than it should have been, but you didn't get much cooperation from the Twelves once you started kidnapping their children for their talents._

"What many of you may not know is that most of these Genactives dropped out of the program two years ago."

_Escaped, that is. When he left, Jack shut down every neural dampener in the complex, destroyed all the kids' files, and sent them running with cash and a contact. He said it was the least he could do for the ones he couldn't take with him, but it also made a hell of a diversion. The Callahan kids are about all we've got left, and Ivana's scared to let them out of her reach._

"Since then, our top priority has been these wayward juveniles: locating them, sometimes to bring them back into the program, but especially making sure they don't use their powers to do harm to the country. There are ninety-one _known_ specials at large; the number may be twice that high."

Colby's mouth tightened. _Yeah, sometimes we bring one in; from what I hear, Ivana's not having much luck bringing them over to the Dark Side. The predisposition for madness is buried deep but still there; subject them to torture and drugs and mind-control tricks and instead of breaking, they shatter. The people in charge of Genesis have a lot to answer for._

"Up till now, our resources and organization have given us a big advantage. These people we're interested in are mostly pairs, isolated and on the run. The largest known group of Genactives consists of five Thirteens and a Twelve, and they've thwarted our every effort to locate and contain them." He added, carefully looking at no one, "Almost as if they had inside information."

The hairs on the back of Colby's neck rose.

"Lynch's kids." It was Ivery, head of Research Directorate after Ivana took over; he'd been one of her chief stooges on the Project, and she'd promoted him over half a dozen senior men.

"Please enter the queue for a comment or question, Doctor Ivery. But yes. Our former Director of Operations bugged out with five Genactive juveniles; what plans he has for them are unknown. But, as you'll see, letting them remain at large would be ignoring a threat to all mankind."

A montage of photos appeared on his screen: Lynch and all the kids, in pictures from before their 'recruitment', throughout their time in the complex, and some mostly low-quality shots that had been taken since they'd been on the run. He noted from the dates and locations that some of the best ones couldn't be Lynch's kids at all; rather, they must be doubles, part of the old man's misdirection campaign. _They just seem too clean-cut and good looking to be dangerous. Then again, the Callahan kids are too, and the boy Matt is the scariest sonofabitch ever to walk the earth._

"At seventeen-forty yesterday, a member of an IO security detail observed this woman entering the Westminster Mall in San Diego." A mall security cam shot of Jack's redhead, Alex's girl, with the little brunette. "She was identified as Caitlin Fairchild, a member of Lynch's group. The rest of the detail was immediately reassigned to her." _Might as well; they sure weren't going to find me. _"She met another member of her group, Roxanne Spaulding, at the door, then went straight to the food service area, where she met Sarah Rainmaker – that's the third Callahan kid - and an unknown." The picture changed again, a food-court shot with all of them gathered around a table; the little blonde was there, clearly part of the group.

Ivana spoke; clearly, the queuing system wouldn't apply to her. "Curious. We chase all over the world looking for them, with no success. Then they suddenly appear, practically on our doorstep, right under the eyes of a watch team. Oblivious to any danger, apparently. At this point, they were pretty much in the bag, wouldn't you say? They're in a box, with all the exits covered, and people watching their every move. We have a team watching the parking garage, and several more in the lots, just in case they get out of the building and have more than one car. And their capture team is less than an hour out." Her voice hardened. "Even if they spotted a tail before we followed them home, these four, at least, should be in holding areas in the basement _right now_. Instead … What's the summary from Medical, Mr. Ruche?"

"We have eleven people in the hospital; four won't be leaving any time soon, and we're looking at one medical retirement at least, maybe two. One death."

Ivana's lip curled. "So, how did this … cheerleading squad … manage to evade, brush aside, or take down fifty agents, and disappear again? Without chipping a nail, I might add. Without dropping their _shopping bags_."

Ruche answered crisply. "I think we need to look right here." The little blonde's picture filled the screen again. She had large eyes, gray-blue, very cute and innocent. "We thought the fourth girl might be a normal, just an acquaintance. When she split off from the other girls, we almost didn't tail her."

_Amateurs._

"The original Lynch group left to catch a film, while this one entered a clothing store – for two hours."

"Meeting someone?"

The man who spoke, Bradley from Legal, was at the top of the queue; he just hadn't waited for permission to speak. He saw Ruche glance at his screen and remove Bradley's name from the top of the list. "No, shopping. They'd been in the mall since three. They spent thousands of dollars in less than three hours, very conspicuous behavior for a bunch of people on the run. Now, look at this." Security cams again: the little blonde, all made up now and in a very different outfit, stepped out of the store, made a big show of remembering something, and turned back inside. The video froze just before she disappeared into the doorway.

"She made her tail." Again, it was Bradley who spoke.

"Worse," Ruche said. "She'd been in that store for two hours, making another huge purchase. See her carrying any bags? We think she stepped out the door to make sure her tail was still _there_." The scene changed: a tiled hallway, looked like public restrooms. A man lounged against one wall.

"I give you one Michael Hale, age twenty-seven, combat veteran, Marine, one tour in Iraq, another in Intelligence. Recent recruit breaking in on an easy detail, just watching the bathrooms and a door to the dock." The little blonde rounded the corner at the far end of the hall. "We're playing this at half speed, so you can see what happens."

What happened was that the girl floated towards the guard in slow motion, smiled at him, and struck like a snake, a blur even at half speed; suddenly she was all over him, one hand on his crotch, the other around his waist. They kissed, spoke briefly, then kissed again; still wrapped around each other, they slid sideways into a restroom and disappeared from view. Just two horny kids with a taste for cheap thrills, grabbing a quickie in a public place.

"That's some hello. They _know_ each other?"

"Dr. Ellis, the _queue_, please? No, they're strangers. And there's more to this clinch than first appears." Ruche replayed the scene. "Look at Hale's hand. He was going for his gun when she grabbed him. In the debrief, he said it was like being in the grip of a bear. He couldn't clear his weapon."

A ribbon of text appeared at the bottom of his screen.

_**Frank, keep your name in the queue at all times. I want all your input on this person.**_

He did, and happened to be next in line. "What about his bio monitor?"

"Went offline as soon as she touched him, spoofed it somehow. She took it away and strapped it on her own wrist; it read seventy- two the whole time she … did what she was doing." This time, when he submitted, he was third in line.

"And what _was_ she doing?" It wasn't quite a leer. He checked the name: Simmons, from Accounting. _What the hell is Accounting doing at a meeting like this? This mother-may-I routine starts to make more sense, with knuckleheads like this butting in._

"Beating the stuffing out of him, with her bare hands. She strangled his testicles and gave him a concussion before she bothered taking his piece. Then she _really _got to work. Half the bones in his hands crushed, elbows too; his knees will have to be replaced before he walks again. He may not be siring children, either. One ear half torn off, along with some broken bones in his face; three broken ribs; some nasty bites on his arm, but he did that himself. Quite a mess. We have pictures, if you have the stomach for it. She was after information, and she got it. The boy cracked like an egg, in thirty minutes."

Simmons wasn't looking so cocky, suddenly; maybe the schmuck would keep his mouth shut for the rest of the conference. He hoped.

"That's bad, but I've seen people take worse than that without breaking. I've seen people take beatings for days without giving up anything." Colby recognized him: Mike Diehl, presently in Personnel, but a former Team Two member, and an old buddy of Santini's. This guy would say something worth listening to. "This kid was no pushover; he had training and experience. How'd she do it?"

"The PsyOps boys would _love _to know. Somehow, this little pixie that we almost overlooked screwed with that man's head so thoroughly, we had to pull all female staff out of earshot of his room; the sound of a woman's voice sends him into fits."

He was up. "How much did you get out of him in debrief?"

"Everything. He couldn't shut up about it at first. It took a lot of sedation to quiet him down."

He looked at the two rows of chairs against the walls: some were occupied, presumably by people with information the principals might want. "Is the officer who debriefed him present?"

A man stood: mid-forties, thinning hair, but fit and hard; he and Colby sized each other up with cop/troop eyes, and approved. "Here, sir. Phillips; I'm his team leader. I handled it myself."

_So this is the man in charge of my security detail, the man whose people I've been embarrassing for years. _"How is he doing, really?"

It was clear by the man's face that the Assistant Director was the first official to ask. He gave Colby the smallest of head shakes. "I can't guess. I've seen men held captive by fanatics for weeks who weren't this messed up."

"Gerry, can we see that hallway scene again?"

"Frank, the queue's getting pretty long."

"Mr. Ruche," Ivana put in, "I think Mr. Colby is on to something. I'm sure that Mr. Ellis and the people from Transportation will be willing to wait." She looked around the table. "Or even remove their names from the queue, to expedite the discussion." The list on the sidebar suddenly shrank by two thirds.

The scene replayed, again at half speed. "Stop," he said at the second kiss; the scene froze. The camera quality was unusually good: he could even see her tongue going into his mouth. Someone coughed. "Mr. Phillips, how did he describe this? The second kiss."

Someone at the table snorted. The team leader stared at the man, his face a stony mask. "She told him the first one wasn't any good; if he wanted to keep his balls, he'd have to do better."

The room got quiet enough to hear the ventilation.

"The first kiss was enough for the camera," Colby said to no one in particular. "The second had another purpose." He looked at the screen. "This wasn't an interrogation. It was a rape."


	2. The Chameleon

"Frank," Ruche said, "there was no sex involved. She just beat him half to death."

"She did a lot more than that." He looked around the table. "You've all heard it before: rape is an act of violence, not lust. It's about anger, and power. The perp takes free will from his victims, forces them to recognize him as the one with the power. That's where the pleasure comes from, pleasure that's sexual in its intensity. But a man who jumps a woman, beats her, drags her into an alley, and forces her to fellate him at knife point _isn't_ doing it because he's horny." He looked at the young man's face on the billboard screen behind Ivana. "If rape was nothing but forced sex, it wouldn't haunt the victims. It's being forced to submit… cooperate… contribute to your degradation."

"It's not the same for a man…"

_But you don't sound too sure, Gerry._ "It's _exactly_ the same for a man. Males just aren't usually raped by females." He jerked a chin towards the kid on screen. "You think this is sex to him? You think he can even _think_ about sex right now? Hardly able to breathe, his balls feeling like hot coals in her hand? That's what the second kiss was all about. The moment they met, she forced him to give her something he'd reserve for a wife or girlfriend… if he had a choice."

"Thought you used to be a beat cop, Frank. Not a detective."

_You know my file as well as I do, I don't doubt._ "My father was a chief of detectives, Gerry. He brought a lot of work home." He looked at Ivana. "If I'm right, we're going to see a chain of actions intended to make him feel helpless and force his compliance. _That's_ how she broke him so quick. Let's see the part where they went into the bathroom." A moment later, he said, "Stop. Whose hand is on the knob?"

"His, but he was the only one with a hand free."

"She's fast enough. She could have opened it without losing control of him. Instead, she made _him_ do it." He looked at the scene. "He's got to know what's waiting on the other side of that door. But she doesn't give him a choice. He follows his torturer into the chamber… and even opens the door for her." He turned to Phillips. "Did she really let him keep his gun?"

The team leader said, "Long enough to make a point, at least. She shoved him inside, and turned her _back_ on him to lock the door. He drew his weapon and trained it on her. He _didn't_ just roll over, sir." That last comment, Colby was sure, was for Ruche's benefit.

"Then what?"

Phillips gave a tiny head shake. "She looked him in the eye, with his sighting dot between her eyebrows, and told him all his gun was good for was pissing her off. Then she moved, too fast for him to track, and safed it with a finger behind the trigger. She forced him to turn his gun on himself – slowly, as if she were savoring it. In debrief, he told us he was sure he was going to die, that she was going to force him to shoot himself. Instead, she stopped, with the end of the barrel an inch from his eye, and told him what she _was_ going to do."

"Which was?"

"Torture him for information. Give him a message to deliver to higher authority, if he lived."

"What sort of message?"

"A declaration of war, sort of. She said that they were going to start ambushing pickup teams and assassinating high-level IO officials. She said that IO people should start looking for hiding places."

_So that's why guys like Bradley and Simmons are here; they're dead weight in the discussion, but they've got enough rank to be targets._ He shook his head. "That's crazy."

"I have to disagree," Ivana said. "This is no crank threat."

"No, Ma'am. I don't dismiss the danger. Even Lynch's kids could cause enough trouble to curtail our operations if they turned guerilla on us. But it's still crazy. The biggest advantage the Gens have in hiding from us is that their existence, and the search for them, is a closely held secret. That limits what we can do to locate them, and obliges us to keep our pickup operations unobtrusive. But they throw that away if they start making public attacks on IO personnel; they'll be impossible to cover up. With their existence known, they cease to be a possible asset and become nothing but a threat. In which case IO has a propaganda campaign ready to launch that would paint them as a bigger threat than neo-Nazis with nuclear weapons. The whole country would be looking for them. They'd never be sure of a hiding place again. It'd be the end of them."

"Well then," Ruche said silkily, "as a last resort, I suppose we could instigate an incident ourselves."

Colby's gut tightened. "Better be sure we're really up against all of them before you do that. Not only will we throw away any possibility of using them in the future, we'll find ourselves in a war with a bunch of fantastically dangerous people with nothing to lose. The casualties would be horrendous."

"But they'd lose."

"Yes. Like I said, it's crazy." He turned back to Phillips. "What happened after that?"

"The account's a bit… disjointed, sir. He sort of drifted in and out, and not just from the pain." The man shook his head. "The kid was good, tough, had the training. He would have handled any normal interrogation okay. But she didn't play by the rules." Phillips looked directly at Colby. "He said she seemed to know the answers before she asked the questions, and she caught him every time he tried to lie, even when he pleaded ignorance to something he might not have known. Like the whole interrogation was just an excuse to bust him up. She acted like she wanted to kill him so bad it thickened the air. She'd be almost to the point of doing it, and get a grip and back off. She told him half a dozen times she wanted to keep him alive, but she kept threatening to cripple him for life."

"Give him hope, and take it away," Colby said softly. "Prepare him for the ultimate punishment, and grant him a reprieve. The power is all hers."

"She told him to bite his arm if he had to scream, because she wouldn't put up with him making any noise. Early on, she made him empty his stomach in the toilet."

Colby looked at Ruche. "Compliance and cooperation."

"When it was over… she fondled his buttocks, told him how much fun he'd been. Hinted she'd see him again."

Colby was glad Diehl was the one to say it: "Your ass is mine. You'll never be free."

"All right, Frank," Ruche said heavily. "I concede your point. I take it this method can't be duplicated by us?"

"Only if we've got a super-powered psychopath on the payroll." _Come to think of it, though, we do. More than one, possibly._ "What happened next?"

The hall camera showed the little blonde stepping out of the bathroom, just as another figure, a familiar redhead, appeared at the end of the hall. The pixie waited for her, and they spoke in front of the bathroom door. Ruche froze the image. "That's Fairchild," he said. "Pretty good timing, wouldn't you say? She even stopped for the shopping bags."

"It _does _look preplanned," Colby said thoughtfully. "But ambushing IO troopers who aren't hunting them… It just doesn't seem like Lynch's style."

"Perhaps they're doing it without his knowledge," Ivana suggested.

"Or maybe," Ruche put in, "he's out of the picture, and they're being run by the pixie."

Colby thought about Lynch's new-man appearance yesterday, as if all his burdens were lifted from his shoulders. _No. He wouldn't give up the responsibility, not while he can still think and plan._ "If he's out, where did this new player come from? And where's Lynch?"

Ruche raised his eyebrows. "She seems pretty ruthless."

Ivana said it for him. "Ruthlessness wouldn't be enough, Mr. Ruche. The man has survived more attempts on his life than I can count. I prefer to think this is happening under his radar."

"He's no fool, either," Diehl objected. "He must be keeping these kids close, else they'd have been caught. How could he not know they're up to something like this?"

Colby added, "And I find it hard to believe that these kids would walk away from…" He caught himself before he finished: _the man who rescued them._ "The man who's been sheltering them so well for two years."

Ruche looked sourly at the men seated around the table. Colby knew what he was thinking: the queue was thrown to the wind, and his control of the meeting with it. Colby hoped the man was smart enough to see that the meeting was picking up steam as a result. "There are ways to turn smart men stupid. Torture and brainwashing aren't this girl's only skills. Let's move on, and you'll see what I mean."

On the displays, the two girls moved down the hallway into the mall proper. The clip was a montage: angle and elevation changed frequently as the point of view switched from one camera to another. You got used to it. At the food court, the pair met Spaulding and the third Callahan kid, Sarah Rainmaker. A conversation ensued, and, from the looks on the girls' faces, the topic wasn't light. The little blonde addressed Fairchild, hands clasped in front of her, while the other two listened.

Ruche froze the image. "Look at this. Is it just me, or does she look like a ten-year-old who just lost her puppy? At this point, the kid Hale is still leaking all over the bathroom floor. Where's the cold-blooded monster that did that?"

"She's a chameleon," Colby said. "Must be."

"Say again?"

"It's a profiling term. Some people have a natural ability to size up a situation, and present themselves in such a way as to get what they want from the people they deal with. They're usually extremely intelligent and amoral, and gifted con artists."

"Which dovetails nicely with _my_ theory. Watch this next bit."

On the screen, the tall redhead looked down thoughtfully at the chameleon, then touched her thumb to her tongue and stroked the little blonde's ear. Ruche stopped the recording again. "Can somebody come up with an explanation for that? Besides the one I'm thinking of?" After a moment of silence, he continued, "Now look at Callahan. She looks PO'd. Or jealous. I think we're looking at a triangle."

Colby raised his eyebrows. "Really."

"Really. Fairchild never had a boyfriend that we could find, but we have reports that indicate she's sexually experienced – and adventurous. We believe she seduced and later killed her recruiter, Julius Gierling, when she was eighteen. And Callahan's sexual preference is well known. We have video from the mall showing her and the chameleon arm-in-arm a couple times – once, after a joint visit to a lingerie shop where they made a purchase. I'm thinking that sex may be the angle she's playing with these girls. It wouldn't be the first time. It was once a common KGB ploy."

Colby opened his mouth, then shut it. He was sure Ruche was barking up the wrong tree; Lynch would never leave one of Alex's girls vulnerable to the manipulations of a sexual predator. But why correct him? Colby decided to see just how far off course Ruche would steer the meeting.

"Look at this'" Ruche went on. "The chameleon's passing out cash and plastic, probably running money. This was a planned op, for sure."

"Not planned enough," Colby couldn't help adding, since he was sure someone else would if he didn't. "Why didn't they have it on them to begin with?"

Ruche shrugged. "Maybe holding the purse strings is another way she keeps them on a leash. Or maybe she planned it alone, and maneuvered her girlfriends into a clash with our people." Colby recognized the trap Ruche was falling into: having formulated a theory, he was tailoring his observations to fit.

Ruche started the video again. "Okay, this is where the wheels start to come off. The Cheerleaders make a break towards their car. Trying to break contact, one of them – Spaulding, we think – takes down their closest tailchaser and then twenty seconds later our little changeling drops a man who tries to intercept them - the only fatality of the op."

Colby watched the event, moved as always by the suddenness of violent death. But the weapon the little blonde wrenched from the man's grip caught his eye. "Wait. Is that a _Franchi_ he's packing?" _A 12-gauge assault weapon, for a quiet surveillance in a public place?_ But as soon as he'd finished, he knew what Ruche's reply would be.

"He was one of yours, Frank. On detached duty. Guess he didn't feel comfortable without his favorite hand cannon."

For over thirty years, US intelligence agencies had been fighting a secret guerilla war against a succession of militant groups that thought that America was too fat and smug and ignorant to live, and that its people needed their eyes opened to the real world by a dramatic gesture. The jihadists were just the last of a long line, and not the most ambitious. Several times since IO had come into its own in the early seventies, its intelligence-gathering assets had ferreted out plots more horrendous than the 9-11 attack. As its successes had raised its status, and its secret finances had burgeoned, the Shop had equipped itself for direct action against the threats it uncovered.

There were many in the intelligence community who resented the ascendance of the upstart organization, and argued that taking on homicidal nutcases planning mischief lay outside IO's charter. Then IO had uncovered signal intelligence that indicated a radical group was planning an attack that would kill thousands, and shared it with the NSA. While the NSA, DIA, CIA, and FBI were still arguing jurisdiction and exchanging memos, Craven's teams had captured and disarmed two very sophisticated nuclear devices in Detroit and L.A. Before any of those agencies had done more than deliver briefs with their best guesses about the origin and extent of the terrorist threat, IO's fledgling X-Team raided an ancient caravanserai on the Afghan-Pakistani border, which turned out to be an assembly facility for nuclear weapons. Close by, they intercepted a group of men hurriedly moving nine more devices in various stages of completion. After Miles Craven had dined with the President, complaints about IO and direct action never rose above grumbles.

But the U.S.'s borders were porous, and the haters legion. The States, and its neighbors north and south, were infested with cells, some competing, some cooperating, some ignoring one another, with threat capabilities ranging from nuisance to terrifying. Planning Directorate uncovered plots faster than it could deal with them alone, but IO didn't play well with others. It handed off most of its cases to rival agencies and stepped away, but the very worst it turned over to its own strike arms: the Razors, who dealt primarily with threats inside U.S. borders; and the eight Expeditionary Teams, who covertly brought the fight to the foe overseas.

The men who signed on with IO's Operations Directorate were the best Craven could recruit: combat veterans with outstanding records and a wide range of skills. But they weren't supermen. Breaking up terror cells all over the U.S. was no less dangerous or stressful than duty in a war zone; doing it in secret doubled the strain on men whose presence and nerves were already stretched thin. Sometimes a battle-fatigued Razor would be rotated to softer duty until he stopped looking behind every door for someone to shoot. Riding herd on some IO bigshot should have been very soft duty indeed.

Colby looked at the frozen image: the face turned and tilted, blood flying away in an arc. If he had Ruche back it up a few seconds, a bit of study might enable him to recognize the man; Operations' strike forces weren't that large, and Colby had come up through the ranks and knew a lot of them. They might have even done an op together, saved each others' lives, even.

"He should have turned it in when he transferred, of course," Ruche said silkily. "But he's beyond reprimand now, and he paid a heavy price for his… training lapse, I'd say."

Colby felt the seat's pressure lessen, and forced himself back down. Ivana might tolerate bickering in a closed meeting, but not in front of subordinates. He locked eyes with the Security Advisor, and acknowledged the scoring of a point. _But we're not done yet. Not even close._ To cover his lapse, he said, "She didn't need to kill him. She'd already taken his weapon. Why him, and not any of the others?"

"He was about to turn Sarah Callahan into hamburger. I think her little girlfriend got carried away."

_Keep repeating that baseless assumption, Gerry, and by the end of the meeting everyone will think it's proven._

The recording resumed. The four females sprinted down the hallway past alarmed onlookers, until the way ahead was blocked by armed men clearly shouting at civilians to clear out.

"Our new player is about to do some more heavy lifting," Ruche said. "Watch this. It plays like a Bruce Lee movie."

The scene showed a Security agent from the knees up wielding a large automatic. The man's movements and facial expressions showed that the image was in very slow motion. As he straightened his arm to fire, the chameleon popped into view in front of him, just as she had with her other victim. "Wait. Gerry, how far is this slowed down?"

"Ten-to-one. Quick, isn't she?"

"Yeah. What's the frame rate on these cameras?"

"Err, about a hundred per second. What-"

"Does she appear in every frame?"

"What?"

"Does she appear in every frame?"

"Well, why _wouldn't_ she?"

"Hang on." He found the laptop's calculator.

"Mr. Colby," Ivana said, "what are you doing?"

"Trying to determine whether we should adjourn immediately and resume by teleconference." He crunched some numbers. "Okay. She crossed twenty feet in two or three tenths of a second, gives her a sprinting speed between forty-five and sixty-five miles an hour. Not impossible for a Gen." He looked up. "I was looking at the possibility that she might be able to teleport. If she has inside information, as her interrogation style suggests, and her threat is serious, _and_ she can 'port…" He looked around. "Every department knows about this meeting. Nineteen of our top twenty people are in this room." The room seemed to cool as faces paled. "But if Gerry says she never disappeared from frame, then probably not." _Bet he'll spend a tense hour looking over the video record after this meeting's over. Tie score, asshole._

It was easy to tell how many people in the room were familiar with Genactive capabilities: they were the ones who wore looks of relief instead of disbelief and incomprehension. Colby noted that the percentage was pretty damn small. He watched Phillips open his mouth, as if to say something, and shut it. "Okay, Gerry, we can move on."

Colby had once seen an extreme slow motion video demonstration of a car's airbag deployment. The bag had sprung out of the steering wheel, slapped the driver in the face and chest, and nearly deflated before the driver even reacted. He was reminded of it now, as the chameleon blurred into view in front of the gunman, spun neatly, and stood with her back against his chest with her hand on his weapon. He looked closely. Her child-sized hand rested partly over his on the grip, and her finger over his trigger finger. She swung the weapon, still in his hand but clearly in her grasp. The muzzle flashed, and only then did the man's face begin to change. It flashed again, and the man started to reach around her with his other hand. Her face, sighting on her next target, never changed expression. Her free arm came up over her shoulder like the arm of a trebuchet, and his face folded around the back of her fist like a freshly punched pillow. A small breathy sound filled the room.

After the agent crumpled, she pulled the big weapon out of his falling hand. She turned sideways with her back foot far behind her and her front leg deeply bent, and extended her gun hand, aiming in a curious one-armed stance that looked better suited to a fencer. The gun flashed twice more in quick succession, then, after a pause, once more. Ruche froze the image. "Great. Genactive, combat-trained, and a martial-arts expert besides. On the bright side, we should be able to track her through her training."

Colby turned to Phillips. "How was her aim?" _Handling a big-bore pistol, and pushing against a man's arm besides?_

Ruche started to answer, but Phillips said immediately, "Her first shot shattered the man's collarbone. Incredible luck, anyone would say, except she did the same to the second man. The boys were ducking for cover by then, but she still managed to shatter two men's pelvises with her third and fourth shots. The fifth man almost lost his arm at the shoulder – tried shooting around the corner with just an arm and an eye showing."

Ruche said, his voice brittle, "And then the Security contingent let them jog down the hall unhindered." He was clearly miffed that Colby had asked Phillips instead of him.

Phillips turned to the Security Advisor. "There were no more effectives between them and the garage, sir. Probably a good thing, since she still had two rounds in the clip when she ran out of targets."

"Too right," Diehl said, staring up at the image on the screen.

Ruche's lips thinned. "A very dangerous individual, I'll admit. But-"

"But not Gen," Colby said.


	3. How Bad Can it Be?

Every face at the table turned to him. Ruche seemed more surprised than most. "What?"

"Or, rather, not any type Gen we've seen before. Not a conventional martial-arts expert either."

Ruche scoffed. "Come _on_, Frank. She went through them like a _scythe_."

"Gerry, will you allow that I have some expertise in this subject?"

That shut him up. Operations hosted an annual combat-skills tournament, and Colby's glory wall contained a dozen trophies from the unarmed-combat competition. Most were second-place awards, but the most recent two were first-placers. It was generally conceded that the competition really started at second place, because Colby owned the event.

"I'm sure she's well-trained if she's working with John Lynch," he continued. "Frankly, I can hardly imagine how dangerous a Gen trained by him would be in a fight." Before Lynch's 'retirement,' the competition had started at _third_ place; Colby's formidable skills and two-decade age advantage hadn't been nearly enough to wrest the top spot from his boss. "But no matter what discipline you're into, good technique requires balance and focus. When you deliver a blow or a kick, you strive to concentrate a maximum amount of force at an opponent's area of weakness." He looked at the image on the screen. "We've all seen this in movies, but it's the only place it works. You can't deliver more than a fraction of your body's strength to your target. It only worked because she had so much strength to waste. It showed no more expertise than swatting a fly."

"It impressed the hell out of _me_," Diehl said. "I haven't competed in the tourney in years, but even at the top of my game, I _never_ would have seen that coming."

Colby shrugged. "Like I said, it's a move that would only work for a special type of Gen."

"'Special Gen.'" Ruche's eyebrows rose. "That's a bit of a redundancy, don't you think? Stop dropping hints, Frank. Do you know something or don't you?"

He faced Ruche squarely. "I know that whether this dustup was planned or improvised, our girl here gave us a startling demonstration – of speed, power, tactical sense, and situational awareness." He saw Diehl and Phillips nodding slightly. He shifted his gaze from Ruche to the image of the chameleon. "And I'll bet she's a good dancer."

Ruche scoffed. "Gee, Frank. If you find her first, are you going to ask her out?"

The room stirred. Men all around the table, and in the back rows as well, traded looks and hid smiles – or didn't hide them. Colby fumed. _I'm a decorated combat veteran. I was a cop on one of the roughest beats in the country. I was an X-Team grunt for four years, and was in some of the biggest ops in IO's history. I made Assistant Director of Operations quicker than John Lynch, the Living Legend. No more than a couple guys in this room would face me in a fight, armed or unarmed. But when my name comes up around the water cooler, I'm just the schmuck with all the crazy girlfriends._

The mirth in the room faded away as its occupants met his eyes, one by one. When the room was silent, he said, his voice even, "If you study her approach, you'll see that the top of her head is even with his eyes. But when she completes her turn and starts shooting, her head is under his chin, even though she's standing upright. That's a drop of six inches. Considering her size, she had to have come down off her toes. Not the balls of her feet – her toes. I don't have much hope for tracking her through her teachers, but if we do, we'll find them in a ballet school, not a storefront dojo."

"Why did you say she's not Gen?" Ivery's tone was curious rather than confrontational. "She looks like an FDM to me."

Colby shook his head. "If she were, she wouldn't have handled the gun like that."

"We've never seen an FDM handle a firearm." Ruche's jaw muscles jumped for a moment. "Have you? Where did you get all this expertise, Frank? Two years ago, you didn't know Genesis existed."

Colby looked around the room, remembering all the blank looks. "I think that whatever insights I have on this subject would best be discussed in a tighter group at this point."

"Oh. You want a _smaller_ audience for your performance, Frank?"

It was the last straw. Colby's vision shrank to a tunnel, with Ruche's face at its end. The pressure of the seat under him lessened as he got his feet under him. "You asked for my input. If you want to discuss facts instead of feeding half the people in this room _bullshit_, you'll clear them out of here, or else they're going to hear what Genesis is _really_ about."

Ruche went white. Ivana said, "Mr. Colby." Her voice was low, in volume and pitch, and dangerous as a rattlesnake's warning buzz. Like a bucketful of ice water, the shock of it quenched Colby's anger immediately, and left him feeling sick and cold.

He rose unsteadily. "My apologies, Mr. Ruche. And to everyone. My conduct was unprofessional." He sat, thinking he _might_ have pulled his head from the noose in time.

Ruche sat back in his chair, his color returning. Colby could almost see him rubbing his hands together at having wrung such a show of humility from him. Then the Security Advisor glanced at his terminal, and his face blanked as he studied it. He cleared his throat. "I, I owe you an apology as well, Mr. Colby. I asked for your input, no matter how unorthodox, and then I disparaged it. Please believe that I hold your observations in the highest regard, and I hope you'll feel free to contribute further."

"Gentlemen," Ivana broke in, "I think we have enough information for a preliminary decision. I regard this threat as serious, credible, an immediate. I want armed escorts for all department heads and above. Cancel leaves, pay overtime, whatever it takes to get our people covered. And I want those officials to get their range qualifications up-to-date. A pistol may or may not be effective against a Gen, but a little firearms proficiency may get our bureaucrats thinking like combatants instead of easy prey. And recall all our teams out in the field hunting runaways, except the Lynch group. Assign that group as much manpower as they request." She favored the group with one of her famous Mona Lisa smiles. "If my people are casting glances over their shoulders, I want it to be _me_ they're looking for."

The chuckles that followed were few and forced, Colby thought. On his terminal, the chameleon's face was replaced with a list of names. "These people will please remain," Ivana said. "All others are excused."

He studied the list, which looked to include about a third of the people present. He recognized most of the names: senior people sitting at this table who probably knew about Gens already, and a few others, like Diehl, with previous experience in IO's rougher pastimes. Phillips was included, he noted. A few others he didn't recognize; he supposed they were support personnel for the principals and couldn't reasonably be excluded. It was the 'tighter' group he would have requested if he'd been asked. Ivana might not be a good judge of character, but she was a great judge of talent.

_This is why Ruche did the one-eighty,_ Colby thought. _She gave him a preview of this list before she posted it, a clear warning she was coming down on my side for now. Guess Gerry's something of a chameleon too._

Phillips stood as if he were one of those dismissed, and in fact looked ready to leave. "Ma'am? I know I'm only here to give information. But if my people and the other Security teams are going to protect staff from these Gens, I think we need a solid brief." He looked at Ruche. "I'm sure my people would have given a better account of themselves in the mall if they'd known what they were up against."

Colby watched Ruche's ears redden. Not only had the Security Director's control of the meeting evaporated; now the _help_ was going over his head to their boss. Colby decided that Phillips was going to need a friend if he didn't want to end up patrolling the parking lot until he retired. And Colby couldn't think of a better new friend than the man running his security detachment. Before Ruche could find his voice, Colby said quickly, "I'd have to agree, ma'am. We've seen what happens even to highly trained men who go up against Gens not knowing what they can do."

"That," Ivana said, "is precisely my intention. For a start." She gestured to the second-tier men seated against the walls. "I'm sure there are enough places at the table now, gentlemen." When the door closed behind the excusees and everyone was seated with the appearance of equality, she said, "All right. The children are put to bed, and it's just us grownups. Some of you are about to be introduced to very sensitive information. You can expect your security clearances and pay rates to be adjusted accordingly. Do _not_ discuss this information outside of this room, even among yourselves, without prior authorization. The penalties for disclosure, deliberate or accidental, will be severe."

_Pity the man who doesn't understand Ivana's definition of 'severe penalties.'_

Ivana turned to him. "All right, Mr. Colby. Thirty words or less. What do you think she is?"

"I think," he said carefully, "she's what Genesis was originally looking for and never quite got: a human with enhanced speed and strength, resistance to injury and disease, with above-average aggressiveness and smarts."

She smiled thinly. "Does 'above-average' count as one word or two?"

"Beg pardon?"

"Never mind. I'm sure no one told you about the original aims of Project Genesis. How do you know about it?"

"With all due respect, ma'am, it's an open secret among the Expeditionary Teams. Everyone knows the odd-numbered squads were lab rats of some sort in the mid to late Eighties. The X-teams split into two groups that didn't work or train together anymore. The odd-squad guys hardly mixed socially, and usually stuck together when they were at mixed gatherings of IO people. And they started getting sent on suicidally risky missions, missions that couldn't have got accomplished by a force ten times their size. Only they _did_ accomplish them; not without casualties, but they completed missions that _nobody_ should have come back from. A dozen or so of those troopers are still around, and they've moved on to other jobs that nobodytalks about. John Lynch was a Team Seven member around that time, and I've faced him on the mat, so I've got a pretty good idea what IO got when it ran Test Series Twelve."

Colby looked at the chameleon's picture on the billboard. "I also know how different the Thirteens are from their parents. Our girl lookss about the right age for a Thirteen, but she's not like any Thirteen we've seen before. And before Mr. Ruche says 'FDM' again, maybe everyone should be made to understand what an FDM is."

"Doctor," Ivana said to Ivery, "You're our resident Gen expert. You give the orientation lectures to Special Security recruits. Would you give Mr. Phillips and the other… uninitiated… a brief explanation of what we're talking about?"

"Glad to." Ivery rose to address the group as if he were in a lecture hall. "I don't know what Mr. Colby's getting at. Frankly, I know nothing about firearms. But I know Gens." He cleared his throat. "Up till now, we've been rather vague about these 'amazing abilities' of theirs. We're not talking about psychics or spoon-benders here, people who can guess which card you're holding three times out of four. Genesis subjects, and Thirteens especially, can perform acts that quite obviously set aside the laws of physics. Case in point: FDMs.

"About half of the hundred or so known Gens can be grouped into half a dozen broad categories, grouped by whatever physical laws they can choose to ignore. The largest of these is the Force and Density Manipulator group, FDMs for short, who play fast and loose with the laws of momentum and energy transfer. Caitlin Fairchild is the most powerful known member of it. She's been observed to lift and throw objects weighing several tons." Ivery raised a finger. "It's important to understand that we're not talking about muscular strength here. Human tissue couldn't handle such stresses. She, and others like her, surround themselves closely with a…" He paused. "A field, perhaps, or a spacetime anomaly, a gateway into an alternate universe where the laws of physics are impossibly different. However you choose to conceptualize it. What we observe is that those laws are… _optional_ for this girl and anything she touches. Let me give you an example. Imagine a steel bar set horizontally in a concrete wall, about eight feet up. Caitlin can reach up and chin herself on it, or reach up and tear it out of the wall, her choice. Or she can grab a car by its bumper and pull, and whether she drags the car or tears off the bumper depends on what _she_ wants. She's been shot at: sometimes the bullets bounce off, deformed, as if her skin were tank armor; other times, they touch her skin and drop to the ground, intact, and no one knows where the energy goes. And on one occasion, she's jumped from an airplane without a chute, fallen a mile to the ground, climbed out of the crater, and walked away."

People at the table were looking all around with raised eyebrows: at Ivery, at each other, and especially at Ivana, who returned their looks coolly. Colby studied Phillips' reaction. Instead of wearing the _you've-got-to-be-shitting-me_ expression most of the others wore, Phillips' face was creased of worry. _As if he's already seen these kids do the impossible,_ Colby thought, _and he's just learning how bad it could get. What the hell happened at that mall?_

"Mr. Colby," Ivana said, "Is that sufficient explanation for us to continue? I'd like to move forward soon. We still have a lot of ground to cover."

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you." He waited for Ivery to sit, then went on. "Going back to the chameleon. I said she couldn't be an FDM, and her gun handling gave it away." He pointed to the image on the billboard display, the chameleon almost in the agent's arms, looking rather like a girl whose boyfriend was teaching her to shoot. "Look at the weapon she's holding. It's a Desert Eagle – the size and shape are distinctive. And, since Mr. Phillips told us it had a seven-round clip, I deduce it's the fifty-caliber version."

Phillips nodded assent. "Action Express cartridges."

Colby addressed the group again. "A Desert Eagle Fifty packs a tremendous punch, but it's very difficult to fire accurately. It's meant to be held two-handed in a well-braced stance, and nobody who tries shooting one-handed with one does it a second time. You might hang onto it, but you won't hit your target. It's got a big kick, and it torques to the left as well." He pointed at the billboard image again. "She took her first two shots pressed up against the gun's owner, borrowing his weight, while ignoring the resistance of his gun arm. When she lost him as a backstop, she crouched to lower her center of gravity and threw a leg back for a brace while she extended her arm and turned sideways to line up her mass behind the gun."

Diehl got it first. "The torque meant nothing to her. But she probably weighs a hundred pounds soaking wet. She was worried about getting pushed around by the recoil."

Colby nodded. "Which wouldn't bother an FDM."

"That would make her impossibly strong." Ivery looked thoughtful. "But… about four percent of Gens exhibit physical changes when they manifest. Fairchild doubled in size in six weeks. Are you suggesting some Gen-induced change to the chameleon's musculature?"

Colby shrugged. "It's a theory, Doctor. Shoot it down if you can. You're the expert."

"That's a relative term. Almost all the Thirteens ran off before we had an opportunity for rigorous testing. The ones still in our keeping are atypical, and the ones we've recovered mostly unsuitable for research."

'_Unsuitable for research.' You're talking about the ones you've caught and tried to brainwash, who wear diapers now and have to be fed by hand. I'm surprised you haven't euthanized them._

Ivery went on. "Up till now, physical changes have only been a side effect. An impressive one, but typically coupled with some special talent. What's her big gun?"

"I don't know," Colby said. "If she's got one, we haven't seen it yet." He waited for the stir to die down. "But she's not a typical Thirteen. The super-soldier characteristics of Gen have bred true with this one. I think she's more like a refinement of Series Twelve than their offspring."

"A Twelve-Five," Ivery suggested. "But where did she come from?"

"I don't know. But a lot of the kids at the Project were illegitimate. For a bunch of guys in their late thirties and early forties, the Twelves sired plenty of children, in and out of wedlock. I doubt we found them all." He pointed a chin at the screen. "And I doubt she's unique. She told Hale that 'we' were organizing for a fight. Maybe she was just talking about recruiting Thirteens. But I don't think so."

"That gives us two hypotheses to explore," Ivana said. "They don't appear contradictory – in fact, Mr. Ruche's and Mr. Colby's notions about our little troublemaker may be complementary." She steepled her fingers. "A Genactive of heretofore unknown type, smart, hyperaggressive, amoral, manipulative, and physically threatening." She smiled thinly. "And working for the wrong side. Any chance of turning her, do you think?"

"It depends on what she really wants," Ruche said. "We just don't know enough."

She turned to Colby with raised eyebrows. He shrugged. "All right then," she said. "Let's move on."

On screen, the foursome jogged down the deserted hall, getting smaller with distance. "Normally, there's a security camera in the garage that covers the other end," Ruche said. "But all the security cams in the garage were down, from six hours previous till just after their escape. Another coincidence, I suppose. We couldn't even tell which car they'd come in, or if they'd come in a car at all. Otherwise, we'd have yanked the plug wires and met them there with a squad."

Just short of the doors, the Cheerleaders halted. The little brunette with the purple streaks bent over, clearly winded. The chameleon bent over her, and they spoke briefly, the little blonde bringing their foreheads together with a hand on the back of the younger girl's head. "Audio sure would have been nice right then," said Colby.

Ruche spoke. "Easy enough to guess. The little dye job was feeling left out. Our girl already got touchy-feely with the other two earlier. This looks like granting equal time to me."

Colby forbore to comment. _Why stop at the girls? Do you suppose she's doing the boys too? Do they have a dog?_

"This is the last bit of continuous feed we have before they break contact," Ruche said. The view changed to an outside shot, apparently from a pole-mounted camera in the mall's parking lot. The view covered the front of the parking garage, including its entrance, and the nearest three rows of cars. A black Suburban sat on the grassy strip fronting the structure, ready to roll in front of the entrance at a moment's notice. The vehicle was surrounded by a dozen men.

Suddenly the parking structure's second-story windows lit up like a thousand camera flashes going off at once. The picture darkened for a moment until the camera readjusted. The men on the ground below noticed the flare and drew sidearms from their jackets. Two reached into the vehicle and brought out assault rifles. Most of them looked up at the window, their tension evident even at this distance.

"That was Callahan taking out the two men in the garage," Ruche said. "Injuries were typical of a lightning strike. One of them will probably end up a medical retirement."

Before the stir in the conference room peaked, a figure appeared in the upper-story window and dropped, trailing a streamer of copper hair: Fairchild. She ignored the weapons trained on her and trotted towards the parking lot. The pavement and cars all around sparked and jittered with hundreds of bullet impacts.

"How can they miss at that range?" Diehl demanded.

"They're not, sir," said Phillips. "Those are ricochets."

Still ignoring the storm of bullets, the girl paused at the first row of cars and grabbed a Mercedes convertible by its bumper, pulling it out of its slot. Colby could see by the wheels that it was being dragged rather than rolled. She hoisted it like a refrigerator box, sighted, and threw it like she was going for a two-pointer. It arced through the air and smashed into the top of the 'Burban. She trotted up the row until she found a Hummer H1 parked diagonally across four spaces. She dragged it into the aisle the same way. But, as she seemed ready to pick up the massive vehicle, she paused, glancing back towards the garage, and contented herself with rolling it over, crumpling every panel on the body, before trotting back to the door, leaving it spinning slowly on its top.

"I could applaud the Hummer," Diehl said. "But why the Benz?"

"Parked in a crip spot with no sticker," Ruche said. "Lady was late for her aerobics class."

Diehl raised his eyebrows. "That girl might be a menace to all mankind, but she's got style."

"How on earth are we going to damage-control this?" A new voice, rather young. Colby checked his name: Adams, one of the senior people on the Keeper team tasked to Lynch and his kids, here to support his boss Ivery, no doubt. "If we're not ready to stop trying to bring them in on the quiet, how do we handle a riot in a crowded mall? Not to mention car-throwing."

"Already done." Ivana looked at the young man coolly. "Last night, we acquired a film studio. It turns out the mall was a shooting location for a big-budget action movie with lots of special effects. Since the scenes needed to be shot from several angles at once, the cameras were hidden to keep the scenes clean. But someone in Scheduling dropped the ball. They started filming in a hall crowded with shoppers, thinking they were extras. Very embarrassing, heads are sure to roll. Imagine, all those poor people scared out of their wits by actors firing blanks from fake guns. It's all over the papers this morning."

Adams' brow furrowed. "But… Ma'am, what about the business in the lot?"

"Well obviously, they're going to have to shoot the location all over again, including that _wonderful_ car-throwing scene. We'll move a big crane into the back of the lot and leave it there for a few weeks. By the time we shoot it a second time, people won't remember it wasn't there for the first one. We'll put out a call for the bystanders to come back as extras for the second shoot, and that will give us a list of witnesses to keep an eye on. We'll settle all injury claims and property damage out of court. And if anyone questions why the film was never finished, we can say the liabilities dried up the financing." Ivana smiled thinly. "The least of our problems, Mr. Adams."

"At this point, Mr. Colby's security detachment withdrew and let the Cheerleaders exit the lot unmolested." Clearly, Ruche wasn't ready to let go of Phillips as a scapegoat.

"Mr. Colby's security detachment obviously didn't have the resources to stop them," Diehl said. Colby was glad to see someone else sticking up for the Security men. He marked Diehl as a possible future ally. "Did they follow?"

"For a while. We have momentary video clips of the fugitives blowing through rush-hour traffic like it wasn't there. One vehicle stuck with them for a few blocks, until Spaulding did _this_." The screens lit with a still photo of a Suburban that looked like a wrecking ball had been dropped on the hood. "Experts figure she briefly hit the car with six hundred gravities.

"They disappeared at that point. Once we'd identified the car they were driving, we tried using traffic video footage to backtrack their route to the mall. Turned out they were one step ahead of us again. About the same time they broke contact, there was an explosion and fire at a gated community in La Jolla. A thirty-million-dollar beach house. A lady walking her dog saw the whole thing. She said it started with a string of explosions, almost like firecrackers. Then the house simply collapsed into the basement and started burning, white-hot. She said it looked like a volcanic eruption. The building was engulfed in seconds. The fire crews arrived in time to hose down the ashes. And yet the only damage to the neighboring houses was a little scorched landscaping." Ruche turned to Colby. "Does Lynch have that kind of demolitions expertise?"

"He does," Ivana said. "No evidence left at the site, I presume?"

"No." Ruche was still looking at Colby. "Is he a super-hacker as well? Can he forge property records and utility bills well enough to hide under our noses in a freaking mansion?"

Colby shrugged. "If he can't, I'm sure he knows someone who can. It was a good location, actually. The sort of people who live in those gated communities value privacy. As long as he stayed on good terms with the neighbors, he was probably safer than in some low-rent neighborhood full of crime and undercover cops and snitches."

"It gets better. The dog walker is a neighbor, of course. Our investigators didn't know to ask questions about the little blonde…"

"Rectify that," Ivana said.

"Doing it now. But they showed the lady pictures of Lynch and the kids. Get this: _she knows them all by their real names_."


	4. Challenge

The group fell silent, digesting that impossibility.

"We've been chasing them all over the globe for the past two years, and it seems they haven't even been bothering to hide," Ivana said. "Is this just a safe house, or their base of operations?"

"Our information is thin at this point," Ruche answered. "We're interviewing other neighbors and outsiders with business there, from the mailmen to the pool boys. But it looks like all five of them moved in as soon as they escaped, and never left."

Ivana's fingers drummed on the tabletop. "So. They've been living a life of comfort and plenty while leading us on a wild goose chase for two solid years. Maybe they just got bored, decided to liven things up a little." Her fingertips were hitting the table so hard, Colby noted, that her nails were marking the lacquered surface. "At this point, they'd gotten away clean. We couldn't use local police to hunt them, because we'd cleared the area of all forces but ours, per standard doctrine – which the Cheerleaders seemed to know quite well. They could have gone anywhere. Instead-" She fell silent, overcome with anger.

Ruche took over. "Thirty minutes after we lost contact, they were spotted again… on the same road, headed the other way. As if they were _looking_ for us. By this time, their dedicated pickup team was in the field and took over, and they formed up and gave chase. The pursuit led up into the hills north of Miramar."

"Once again, they're obviously trapped." Ivana had regained her composure. "The fugitives take a vacant road that dead ends five miles up in the hills. The only fork winds back towards Miramar and peters out. We have an armed chopper lying in wait to disable their car, and twelve trained agents, armed to the teeth, right on their tail. The bait was wiggling irresistibly on the hook."

Everyone waited. Ruche nodded at Adams while he fiddled with his laptop. "Mr. Adams was a member of the pickup team. What would you say happened?"

"They beat us to the draw," Adams said simply. "Knocked the chopper out of the sky as soon as it appeared, then took out the chase cars at a range of about two hundred yards. Then they took off down the road and disappeared again."

Diehl leaned in. "How?"

"Twenty-millimeter cannon." The billboard changed from a view of the Spaulding-smashed chase car to a scene that resembled the airport road to Baghdad on a bad day: three wrecked and burning cars in a crooked line, with a broken helicopter lying a few yards off the road. "The rounds were, I'm told, PGU-28s, armor-piercing high-explosive incendiaries, designed to pierce light armor and raise holy hell with what's behind it. A round tailor-made for the job, given an accurate weapon and a good marksman."

Colby blinked at the totaled vehicles spewing oily smoke. "You said no casualties?"

"None, sir. It was a rifle, not a Gatling. They fired exactly five rounds, with pinpoint accuracy. I'm sure they could have killed us all if they'd wanted to."

_And despite any injunctions, the word will spread._ "Where'd they get their hands on a twenty-millimeter sniper rifle and military ordnance? Scratch that. Twenty-millimeter is the commonest cannon round in the NATO arsenal; I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to make a couple boxes disappear. And I'm also sure a man with Lynch's money could have a fine gun custom-made for it."

"Which they just happened to be carrying in the back of their minivan on a shopping trip." Ruche looked at Ivana.

Ivana drummed her fingers on the table again. "After two years making us chase our tails, they pop up in the middle of a Security op like a clutch of cats at a dog show, bitch-slap us, and disappear. And then to make sure we get the message, they do it a second time, in the same afternoon, to specialists we trained to apprehend them." She looked around the table. "People, we're being challenged."

"Or warned," Colby said.

"It's the same thing." She folded her arms on the table, deliberately stilling her restless fingertips. "I want a brief on Genactives worked up for our Security people, and a training program for dealing with them. We can't expect them to protect their principals effectively otherwise."

"If we do that, we'll have to give the bodyguards higher security clearances than some of their principals," Ruche protested.

"So be it. Work something out, Mr. Ruche. And quickly. You're going to be earning your pay this week." She turned to Colby. "As are you, since I want you to work up the training program. And I want similar training instituted for our paramilitaries."

"Ma'am," Colby said slowly, "you want to train _Operations_ troopers to engage Genactives?"

"I do. Further, I want Operations personnel ready to support and reinforce Security in joint actions." She glanced at Adams. "I suggest you start with Dr. Ivery's Special Security people, since they're our resident experts, and more likely to make hard contact with Gens. And perhaps SS might find some fresh ideas from outsiders invigorating. But before we're done, I want your troopers ready to work in concert with Mr. Ruche's Security people, as well."

Colby tried to imagine the trained killers of the X-Teams conducting joint exercises with the former private detectives and rent-a-cops that comprised most of Ruche's security details. _I wonder if she knows the Operations grunts refer to them as 'Gerry's Kids.'_ "Are we talking about using my people as a reserve of some sort?"

Ivana's mouth thinned. "I'm talking about taking off the kid gloves, Mr. Colby. I want bodyguard details to be able to call on Razors if they're ambushed by Gens, and Keepers reinforced by X-Teams on takedown operations. The next time we run into this bunch, they're coming back with us. Period."

She turned back to Ruche. "And I'd rather be the one to pick the time and place that happens. Throw all available resources into hunting down Lynch's bunch. Get all possible details of their stay at that beach house. Interview every clerk they talked to at the mall. Go back to the ambush site, and walk the road. Sift the gravel. Find out if ground-scanning satellites of any type were looking at the area at the time. Get the video record of every traffic cam within a couple miles. Interview anybody living within the same radius. I want to know how they disappeared off a dead-end road in the middle of nowhere."

Ruche said faintly, "Yes, ma'am."

"All right. I think we're finished here for now. Remember, gentlemen, no one else is to know about this discussion until Mr. Ruche prepares his brief and Mr. Colby the training program. Mr. Ruche, Mr. Colby, and Dr. Ivery please remain."

Once again, a knot of men filed to the door. When it closed behind them, Ivana said, "Gerry, let's see that mall picture again, the little blonde shooting up the corridor." When the image appeared, Ivana studied it from her chair. "This one is the game-changer. Especially if she's not unique. How did she pop onto the scene from nowhere? I'll admit it's possible we missed more than a few of the illegitimate Thirteens with our net. But, to all appearances, they're nearly normal kids until they manifest. Somehow, I doubt this one could make it all the way to puberty without attracting notice. If there are a handful of them, how is it we didn't spot at least one of them before now?"

"I've been thinking about that," Ivery said. "Something Frank said about physiological changes prompted it. As you know, they don't all occur at puberty. Thirteens are physically remarkable specimens when they're born. If we're prepared to throw all our assumptions aside… how old can we be sure this girl is?"

Ruche shrugged. "No older than twenty-one, twenty-two at the oldest, or she's not the child of a Twelve."

"Yes. But I'm thinking in the other direction. We looked for unusual kids aged thirteen to eighteen, on the assumption that we wouldn't spot a Gen any younger."

"Wait. You think-"

"You said it yourself, Gerry. Sometimes she doesn't look more than ten years old. _Homo sapiens_ has an unusually long adolescence. Most animals our size are fully mature in just a year or two." Ivery added, "It wouldn't undermine your theory. For all we know, these… Twelve-fives are sexually mature when normal girls are still playing with dolls."

Colby filed that possibility away, as part of a conversation he intended to have with Lynch as soon as possible.

Ivana nodded. "So we need to broaden our search parameters." She stood and rounded the table, eyes on Colby. Ruche started to rise, but she gestured him back down without looking at him. She drew back the chair next to the Deputy Director and sat.

Colby felt a familiar and uncomfortable sensation. He'd never been this close to his boss before, except for the occasional handshake. He was suddenly aware of her as a woman for the first time, and realized she was only a few years older than he was, and quite good-looking. She laid her hand over his on the table, and looked up into his eyes. She had nice eyes when she smiled: dark brown, clear, generously lashed. He flashed on an image of her on the other side of a candlelit table.

She said in a low voice, "Frank, I'm done screwing around with you. I know you're in contact with some of the runaways at least, probably Jack's bunch. I've tolerated it for two reasons. One, because I thought it might come in handy someday. Two, because I'm sure you're too smart to aid them against us."

She gripped his hand tightly, making him feel in the grip of a raptor. Her eyes turned dark and flat, reminding him of a shark's. "If I thought for a moment you'd helped to set up our people in San Diego, you wouldn't leave this room alive. But they used you, just the same, I think. They knew you were headed for a meet, and would ditch your security detail. They just shadowed you and waited for you to disappear before they sprang their trap. That still leaves you on very thin ice with me, Frank. Up here where the air is thin and the paychecks are heavy, you and Santini are all that's left of the old guard. I keep you both around because your usefulness outweighs the bother of dealing with you. Don't fall on the wrong side of that balance, Frank. After what happened at the mall, you need to go out of your way for me. If you have… resources, use them." She nodded towards the image on the billboard. "Find out who she is, and what she really wants. I want this threat neutralized."

She stood, and reached down for his hand, tugging him out of his chair. When he stood, they were only a foot apart, with her hand still in his. He caught a hint of her perfume, something musky and expensive. She looked up at him, a smile playing around her mouth. She straightened his tie. "Frank, you're incorrigible. Have you ever thought of looking for a girl in church?"

His ears reddened. "If I found one, she'd probably be robbing the poorbox."

She laughed genteelly. "I'd hate to lose you, I really would." She guided him towards the door with a hand at the small of his back. "Dig deep, Frank. You're investigating on my authority. If you learn anything substantive, call me day or night."

Once he was out the door, he saw Phillips at the end of the hall, waiting for him.


	5. Response

When the door shut, Ivana turned back to Ruche, the good humor already gone. In a brittle voice, she said, "Watch him. Every second, whenever he's out of the complex. Bug his house, his phone, his car. Bug his clothes. Bug his fucking _glasses_. If he takes a piss, someone had better be able to tell me what color the stream was." She calmed somewhat, and Ruche's heart dropped back into his chest. "I want additional surveillance on him. A second layer, independent of the first. Have them shadow him and his guards."

"It may be hard to find people he can't shake. The people I've got on him already are supposedly the best I have."

"Then hire a private firm, the best you can find. We should have done it sooner. He probably knows exactly how many people you've got detailed to him, and how well trained they are. This may be the only way to put a tail on him that will stick." She returned to the head of the table, but passed her seat to stand at the billboard screen. The chameleon was still on display, Desert Eagle in hand. The image was life-size, and Ivana and the chameleon's heads were at the same height. She looked at the image, her back to him and Ivery. "Now. Can someone tell me how this little _bitch_ left _my_ prints on the bathroom knob?"

Ruche's heart jumped back into his throat. "Well, hem, there are latex appliqués you can put on your fingers-"

The boss lady of International Operations wasn't easily misdirected. "I know all about appliqués, Gerry. Where did she get the _prints_?"

The fingerprints of all senior IO personnel, along with their medical records and other personal information, were part of their sealed files. Only the staffers themselves or their designates would have access. The security of those files was Ruche's responsibility. "Well… Lynch would have had access before he left. He might even have installed a back door, so he can still get into the database."

"No." Ivery shook his head. "Weren't security protocols changed when he crashed the mainframe at Darwin?"

"Oh, yes, that's right." With Ivana's back still turned to them, he shot a glare at the Research head. "He still could have copied the files before he left."

"Or we have a mole with access," Ivana said. "Back to Colby. When did he learn about Genesis?"

"Two years ago, when he took over as Assistant Director. We brought him in so he'd know why we were hunting his former boss, since we're using Operations assets for the search. Otherwise we'd have left him in the dark like we did Lynch."

"Only Jack wasn't entirely in the dark, was he? How the _hell_ did he find out his boy was at Darwin?"

"Well, once Lynch knew about the second phase of the G13 project, he could safely assume that if _we_ ever found his kid, that's where he'd be. We think he got hold of the school's DNA records and did some comparisons."

"That man always was too clever for everyone else's good." Ivana's voice softened. "If his wife hadn't rabbited, we'd be running this place together, Jack and I. It's what Miles _really_ wanted." She looked into the chameleon's eyes. "Instead, he ends up running for his life with a freak show and _this_ pretty little piece." She put a thumb on the screen, seemingly touching the chameleon's chin. "Do you suppose she's doing him, Gerry? _Just_ him. I'm sure the kids are under his thumb. If she's got him by the dick, she wouldn't have to bother with the others." She turned back towards them, her expression intent. "When I get my hands on her, she won't stay pretty."

Ivana was standing almost cheek-to-cheek with the image of the chameleon. It was like seeing her with her cheek pressed to a mirror.

Ruche felt his blood pressure drop; dimly, he heard Ivery's breath puff out. Ivana looked at their faces, frowning slightly. "What?"

"Ivana," he managed to say, "didn't you tell me you don't have any relatives in this country?"

"I don't have relatives anywhere, Gerry." Then she caught it, and looked at the chameleon. "Really?"

He nodded. "Really. When you talked about messing her up, your expressions were identical. You could be sisters. Twins, even."

"And her hair," Ivery said. "You wore it like that for a while, when you first came here. Not blonde, but the same style."

"I'll bet anything she sounds like you, Ivana. Thick-soled shoes, contacts, and a wig – and she's you. At least close enough to fool someone who doesn't know you. I think we've found our mole."

Breathlessly, Ivery said, "My God, she could have _everything_. And if she's been giving orders in your name, there's no telling what sort of time bombs she's planted."

Ruche's imagination took flight. "Our financial records. The _real_ ones."

Ivana scowled. "Get a grip, you two. If she had all that, we'd be out of business already. She hasn't been roaming IO property at will on the strength of a resemblance." She studied the image. "You know, she doesn't look so nauseatingly _cute_ in this picture."

"She's just killed a man with her bare hands," Ruche said. "She's in the middle of gunning down five more, and she's a second away from smashing in the face of the man behind her. She's _not_ cute."

Ivana nodded. "Good. I never was either." She returned to the table and sat, steepling her fingers in unconscious imitation of Miles Craven. "All right. I don't care how much she looks like me, we don't have identical prints. Twins don't. Even a clone wouldn't; prints aren't a genetic trait. So we know she has, or has had, access to our personnel files. What can she do with them?"

"Blackmail?"

"Oh, please. _Personnel_ files?" Her mouth twisted in a sneer. "Medical histories. Previous employment, marriages, mistresses. Treatment for substance abuse or STDs. Who'd be insane enough to cross _me_ to keep that stuff a secret?"

Ruche thought the files could still be serious leverage, if they were handled skillfully. But he knew his boss, and he was sure Ivana was in no mood to be contradicted. "Then perhaps she may be looking for weaknesses to exploit." An idea came to him that was beautiful and monstrous in its possibilities. "Like Colby's taste in women."

Ivana looked up over her fingertips at him, startled. "You think…"

He shrugged. "He seemed to know her awfully well on scant information. Or maybe it's just that she's his kind of girl." _Like you_, he thought. He hadn't missed the weird chemistry between her and Colby as she'd dismissed him. He wasn't jealous – he'd rather invite a cobra into his bed – but the exchange had made him feel uneasy and threatened. Keeping those two apart seemed like a very good idea.

"Hm. We're missing something, Gerry. Why did she go to the trouble of leaving my prints at the scene, if not to show us that she had those files? Let's keep that in the back of our minds. What about our PT? The tricks they do with computers and phones have me wondering. _Tell_ me she and Jack haven't got their hands on proscribed tech."

His mouth went dry again. "I'm sure she couldn't access Research data without leaving tracks, and a snap audit last night came back good. They're the most secure files we have, of course, and carefully encrypted."

"And the hardware? The demos and prototypes?"

"Locked down tighter than an ICBM silo. You know that." The three of them were regular visitors to the seven warehouses in Arizona, California and Colorado where the working models of IO's discoveries were kept safe. "With your permission, I'll check the entry logs against your itinerary for the past couple years, see if you've ever been in two places at once." He inclined his head towards Ivery. "But you usually go with Ben anyway. I suggest that you travel nowhere without a large escort from now on. Not just for your protection, but to make you harder to impersonate."

She nodded. "Good. Make sure no one got into the vaults _before_ Jack took off, Gerry. He's dangerous enough without a truckload of flying saucers and death rays."

Ruche said carefully, "You seem certain they're working together."

"If she's maneuvering those kids, she's maneuvering him. She wouldn't get away with it any other way." She sat back in the chair. "What about financial? Be realistic."

He nodded. "You're right; she must not have a copy of our books. She might be skimming cash, I suppose, but nothing turned up in the quarterly audits."

"That's not reassuring. It would tickle Jack to use our own money to thwart us." She looked at Ivery. "Ben. Imagine Jack copying the Genesis database at Darwin before he trashed the computers. What would he know that we don't?"

"God. How could we know?" Then Ivery started thinking about it. "All the kids' histories, of course. A lot of stuff on the Twelves. Theoretical and observational data – manifestation is an exponential process, as you know. But if you know what to look for, you can see it start before the subjects do. That's why we kept them busy with schoolwork and exercise, and tested them constantly and made them submit to weekly physicals." He shook his head. "And they _still_ caught us unprepared. Who'd have guessed they'd all manifest at the same time? Putting them all close together must have triggered a group reaction of some sort."

"Would he know things about Gens we never knew, perhaps? New discoveries?"

Ivery raised his eyebrows. "Possibly, if he had talented researchers. After all, he'd have had the data for two years. And he's got five developing Thirteens to observe at close hand."

Ivana's mouth thinned. "Those prints were another challenge, a shot over our heads. Not only have they got us scared to conduct operations, now we have to tear our organization apart looking for leaks. What a clever little bitch. She means to tie us up in knots, paralyze us." She turned to Ruche. "Keep the pressure on Colby, any way you can think of. Use him as a bird dog to flush them out for us."

He felt his brows gather. "Why me?"

She gave him her Mona Lisa smile. "Because you're so good at goading him. I never saw anyone get under his skin the way you do." She looked at Ivery. "When that happens, we need to have a little surprise for them. Benjamin, I want something that'll strip a Gen of his powers without putting a collar on him, preferably without having to get close. Give me something. And both of you get your service pistols out of your desk drawers and get down to the range to re-qualify. I need senior people to set an example."

Ruche wasn't afraid of guns, but he found them distasteful. He'd barely qualified when he'd first joined IO, and he suspected the range master had passed him out of pity, knowing he'd never hold a gun again. "What about you? When was the last time _you_ qualified?"

Her eyes were flat as a shark's. "Eleven days ago, Gerry. With a Desert Eagle."


End file.
